Funko Stuff!

Well folks, San Diego Comic Con has come and gone once again. Stuff got announced, people cosplayed as cool things, and Funko released more exclusive Pops.

This was the complete set of this year's pops and other stuff. Gonna admit, I was pretty relieved that there weren't a lot of pops I wanted this time around. I've said before that I've pretty much run out of room to store much of anything, so I've become really picky about what I pick up.

In past years, I wouldn't have passed up an orange Conan O'Brien, or went out of my way to grab a Man-Thing pop from Entertainment Earth. I really wish that Pez mascot wasn't a Toy Tokyo exclusive, looks like it's eBay's problem now. And really, I didn't care about the Louie Bloo Otter Pop until it was only limited to 1000 of them.

But here I'll show you what I DID pick up!

Of course it was obvious that I'd nab the Kang & Kodos two pack from GamesStop. Turns out that this was one of those rare times where it was shortpacked, because for some reason stores ended up getting less than 3 of them, if at all. I checked five stores and came up empty handed, but luckily my friend Steve was able to pick up the last one at his local store in the mall.

They're pretty impressive up close. They're slightly bigger than most normal pops, plus they glow in the dark!

These were the Funko shop exclusives. You might remember last year that I managed to snag the Banana Splits set in a stroke of dumb luck. This year Funko got much better about announcing releases in advance so I was more than ready this time. I also may have underestimated the popularity of a few characters. HR Pufnstuf and the SDCC Toucan sold out immediately, but as of writing this, Sigmund is still available.

Being a fan of Sid & Marty Krofft, I had to pick these up. The SDCC Toucan seems to be the convention's mascot, and far be it from me to miss out on yet another ad icon pop.

I really like the details on the HR Pufnstuf pop, like that Mayor badge, and that he's holding the golden flute.

Sigmund is quite cute close up.

The pictures don't do it justice, they're pretty impressive looking.

Oh! And this is probably the more impressive pickup: The Freddy Funko Box o Fun from Fundays. What's Fundays, you ask? Well, it's more or less a party Funko holds every year during SDCC for its most diehard fans and/or resellers. Everyone there gets lots of Funko pops with low production runs (like 24 and 48 pieces total. I've seen 12), prototypes (literally one of a kind), and all kinds of cool stuff. For the second year in a row, Funko decided to be generous and put out a mystery box of nine possible pops that are exclusive to this box.

This year was Tiki party themed, so that explains the two Tiki characters (which are variants of pops given at Fundays this year), plus Surfing Freddy. Batman & Joker's were variants of these two pops:

Yes, these are pops of Batman and Joker from that one episode of the Adam West series where they went surfing.

I've seen that episode and trust me when I say it's gloriously stupid. It's season 3, so it's very cheap and ridiculous, but it's a must see

As for the rest, we have Rick w/Portal Gun and Toxic Rick from Rick & Morty, Chucky, and Mer-Man from Masters of The Universe. Don't ask me why, I don't pick who gets the Malibu Stacy with New Hat treatment.

Here's what it looks like from the back. Everyone at Fundays got one, and last year was the first time Funko extended this gift to the regular folks like me. They sell out lightning quick, too, and you had to basically watch your computer to know when the orders went live.

I would've bought the one they had last year, too, but again, buying the Banana Splits pops were enough for me. And frankly, I liked this year's crop better.

This was my haul: Surfing Batman, Surfing Joker, and Portal Gun Rick.

Here's Rick up close. There's already a Rick Freddy Funko that was given out at a past Fundays, but this is the first one with the portal gun.

All in all, these were the exact three I wanted, so this was $50 and change well spent if you ask me. I've brought up in past posts that I've been having oddly good luck with mystery boxes in the past year, and it turns out this time was no different. Will my luck ever run out? Stay tuned!

Follow Me on Twitter!

(NEW) Follow Me on Instagram!
"Like" Beaming For Bunnies on Facebook!
"Like" my Simpsons Quote of The Day Facebook Page!

I Met Big Bird!

Yep, two for two months I met somebody awesome at a con.

This time it was Caroll Spinney, the man who created and puppeteered Big Bird and Oscar The Grouch for close to fifty years. He hadn't really hit the convention circuit (especially not around here), so of course I wouldn't give up a chance to finally meet him at EternalCon this past month.

While he (as well as his wife Debra) was nothing but nice and lovely...the man is getting old and had to retire for a reason. I was afraid to ask what exactly was afflicting him, but he could barely talk (and whatever he said to me I couldn't hear over the crowds), could only write his own name (slowly), and had to be guided by his wife to look at cameras. I got to finally meet the man behind some of my favorite muppets, but I guess I'll have to fulfill my dream of getting a picture of Oscar actually signed by Oscar somewhere else. Trust me when I say that this was an incredibly flattering picture. It was certainly something I wasn't expecting to see.

Frankly, it felt like the time I met Stan Lee in 2016 all over again.

I swear that if I didn't see the man up close myself, I'd swear his handlers were pulling a "Weekend At Bernie's" thing on us, manually controlling the body of an old man with not a lot of energy left in him. Stan Lee (as well as Caroll Spinney) was one of those guys who would never give up on meeting his fans, but you could tell the man was tired. He would sign stuff for half an hour, then take a half hour break. The man was 93, he was more than allowed to do this. Sure, the line took three hours to get through, but it was all worth it in the end to sign this picture I got of him in 2013.

I had a feeling that he had two years left on him, tops, and it turned out I was right when he passed last year. Some times I hate being right.

But let's move on to someone a bit more youthful. This is me with Johnny Yong Bosch. To me, he'll always be Adam, the second black ranger on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

The man looks like a barely aged in 25 years, right?

These days he's probably best known for his extensive voice over career, providing voices for dubs like Bleach (as Ichigo), Code Geass (as Lelouch), Akira (as Kaneda), Durarara!! (as Izaya), Trigun (as Vash The Stampede) Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (as Jonathan Joestar), plus video games like Dangonronpa, the Devil May Cry series, and Persona 4. His IMDB page is a mile long, you're better off reading his credits there. Essentially, if you've watched an anime in the past 20 years, he was in there SOMEWHERE if he's not one of the leads.

The one specific role I wanted something signed from him was of Johnny, a one time character from Space Dandy. He was a, intergalactic rock star that decided to start a band with Dandy, and of course it goes nowhere.

As you can see from this picture, that pic was barely the size of an index card (as were the at least 70 similar cards he had of all his other roles). Feeling bad that this was way smaller than what I was expecting, he decided to sign it for free in addition to the Power Rangers pic there, because that's just the kind of awesome guy he is. And he was NOT cheap, being one of the more noteworthy dub actors outside of the DBZ cast will do that.

Also in attendance was another prominent voice actor, James Arnold Taylor. Probably best known for voicing Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Clone Wars cartoon, plus Ratchet in the Ratchet & Clank games, and Tidus from Final Fantasy X. Not to mention he's the voice you hear in bumpers on Fox (especially the Sunday night block), and...yes, Johnny Test himself. This is another guy who's been everywhere, and his IMDB page is also pretty long. Again, if you've watched a cartoon in the past twenty years, good chance you've heard him.

This obviously isn't everyone, but these are the more prominent ones. He asked me who my favorite voice was. Without missing a beat I said Judge Fudge (from Drawn Together. He's in the lower right). I also brought up Johnny Test for whatever reason. So sue me, I've got some kind of morbid curiosity with it.

Oh, and I'd like to bring you an update from something I talked about last month. My friend Mike happened to attend East Coast Comic Con the day after I did and got George Perez to sign this copy of Crisis on Infinite Earths for me.

Pretty sweet.

Follow Me on Twitter!

Follow Me on Instagram!
"Like" Beaming For Bunnies on Facebook!
"Like" my Simpsons Quote of The Day Facebook Page!

I met Dr. Demento!

Usually when I title these blog posts, I try to act all subtle, and to not bury the lede so soon.

But not this time.

Yes friends, that's me with Dr. Demento, taken just a few weeks ago at East Coast Comic Con in Jersey. Radio host, media personality, the guy who gave Weird Al (and countless others) his start, and all around goofy, friendly guy.

As a fan of all things weird and campy in pop culture, I just had to meet the guy. I'd been listening to the Covered in Punk album he released last year, and just had to tell him just how much I loved it. The guy who helped him put it together, John Cafiero of Osaka Popstar, was in attendance too, but for some reason I didn't approach him.

It was no surprise that Dr. Demento was a totally nice person, and sounding exactly the same as he did all those years ago. I had to ask him just how in the world did he become Bart Simpson's other arch nemesis, since that question's been plaguing me ever since I first saw that episode over 20 years ago.

He simply gave me the actual story behind his cameo: Matt Groening would always listen to him while drawing Life in Hell, and decided to put him into the show as a way of saying thanks. So this just means that the mystery behind this little throwaway gag continues.

Throughout his stories, I was hanging on his every word. I'm not the most talkative guy around, but if I didn't have other things to do that day, I would've been able to talk to him for hours.

And I definitely could have. Since there was about a few months of hype surrounding his appearance (and being cancelled and being put back on a few times before the show arrived), I thought I would have to fight crowds and I feared missing out on him. Oh, how wrong I was. I pretty much had the guy to myself, which is a double edged sword. For one, it's not every day you meet a guy like Dr. Demento and being able to hold an honest to god conversation with him at a busy convention. On the other hand...I just kept thinking he was lonely. Well, he had his handlers and the other people around his table, so he wasn't truly alone. It always pains me to see someone at a con get little attention.

He paled in comparison to the show's real headliner, this guy:

George Perez. Artist for Marvel and DC, responsible for illustrating such works as the Infinity Gauntlet event, and Crisis on Infinite Earths. That alone would be enough to command a crowd, but he was apparently on his "farewell tour" from retiring not only from the comics industry, but the convention circuit as well. I'm not THAT well-versed in the inner workings of the comic industry, but that's still a pretty big deal. I just didn't know HOW big of a deal he was.

I would've loved to have gotten him to sign my copy of the Infinity Gauntlet collection, just like I did for the other three guests there: Ron Lim, Joe Rubenstein, and Jim Starlin.

Each of the guys that signed it either charged ten bucks, or were free. Gotta love deals like that.

Yep, that's the creator of Thanos. And of course, a totally cool guy.

George's line got cut off every time I tried to get on it, so that candid picture is all I have of him. Not only was he willing to sign up to a dozen things for everyone in line, but he's also pretty chatty and loves to talk to his fans. Which is all well and good, but that meant lines that lasted for hours. FOMO hit me pretty hard, even though I got to see and meet lots of other great things that day.

Like Butch Patrick (the guy who played Eddie Munster) playing Munsters pinball. If you were able to beat his score, you won a piece of Munster's memorabilia from his table for free. As far as I know, nobody beat him.

And of course, the Munstermobile. Or at the very least an awesome replica.

The Munstermobile was a given, but I wasn't expecting to see the Dragula from "Munster, Go Home," the 1966 movie that ends with Herman entering a race to restore the honor of the family name, or something. It's been a while since I've seen it.

And finally, probably my biggest score at the place. I don't normally go for mystery boxes, especially ones that are just a single Funko Pop. See, one booth was selling a $50 mystery box containing a single Funko Pop that was signed by various celebrities at shows that the booth's been to. The possibilities ranged from Stranger Things, Power Rangers, MCU cast, Billy West, some Game of Thrones people, all the way up to Stan Lee.

Of course, not every possible signed pop was worth the $50. But that's what makes it fun! I decided that I was still under budget and just felt lucky, so I bit the bullet. I grabbed one off of a pile, and told the people there that I had a good feeling about this one. Imagine my surprise when I opened up the box to find this Harry Potter pop signed by Daniel Radcliffe.

I was assured that it's real, and for now I refuse to part with it. For now.

Follow Me on Twitter!

(NEW) Follow Me on Instagram!
"Like" Beaming For Bunnies on Facebook!
"Like" my Simpsons Quote of The Day Facebook Page!

Endgames and Other Stuff

How about that Avengers: Endgame, eh?

image created by @brotherzee

Without going into too much detail, I thought this ruled. I've always been more of a DC guy, but I've been eating up just about everything Marvel's been spitting out into theaters for the past ten years. I've only missed Hulk's and the two Ant Man movies, but I've seen every other movie in the MCU. And boy, not only did Endgame stand pretty freaking well as its own movie, not just a damn good sequel to Infinity War, but a legitimate culmination of 21 previous stories without getting bogged down with the story it was trying to tell. Seriously, every other MCU movie gets a nod in some way, some subtle (watch for the kid from Iron Man 3), while others are giant plot points (the dozens of Thor: The Dark World fans will be happy). I do wish I at least saw Ant Man & The Wasp, elements from that movie play a big part in the story, but I honestly didn't feel lost at all.

In terms of its scale, imagine the third Lord of The Rings movie, you know, with that giant battle at the end and everything? Like that, but with superheroes. Hell, remember when the INKLING of an Avengers movie got everyone excited? Endgame was just on a whole other level. Forgive me if this is the most minor of spoilers, but it's probably easier to list who ISN'T in this movie. All I wanted out of this movie was to see Korg again. I got to see Korg again. I am a happy man.

There's some shots in this movie so full of pure comic book audacity that if I were to show them to the 2008 version of me that just saw the first Iron Man, I'd think future me was just making up bullshit. Speaking of shots, I'm glad I ended up splurging for an IMAX screening because this flick is absolutely gorgeous and it needs to be seen on the biggest screen possible.

With that out of the way, here are some other actual spoilers, but devoid of any context.

You have been warned.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Some of these I may have cribbed from the Simpsons Films twitter, but whoever runs that page is a genius, and I'll freely admit to borrowing from the best.

Coincidentally enough, I talked about Infinity War here this time last year, and I said I put money down on Hawkeye being the one to save the universe in the end. Well, I was close enough? Also, we still never got to see Thor and T'Challa formally meet each other, and judging by where Thor goes in the end, it looks like that's not happening anytime soon.

With that out of the way, this past month I bought yet ANOTHER cel from the Cricket Gallery.

Yes, this authentic cel of Dr. Stupid from Ren & Stimpy! I can't really find footage of it right now, but I'm pretty sure it's from the specific short where he tells you that the reason why you have to go to school is because your parents are aliens. That's always been the one that stuck with me ever since childhood because, hey, the man's got a point.

But I was wondering why I got a cel from an iconic short for pretty much a steal. (You might remember the Izzy cel in last month's post, it cost a little over $140). Once I had it in my hands, I was able to get a better look at it.

There we go. That's the problem, it doesn't look as well preserved as any of the other cels I have, even the other Ren & Stimpy one I have.

This iconic Happy Helmet cel came from Bob Camp's personal collection, so I knew it was given the love and care it deserved before I brought it home and put a frame around it. From what I've read about cels, there's really nothing you could do to truly preserve them, they'll all eventually crumble into dust. All you can do is put it under as much glass as possible and hope for the best.

A few years back at NYCC, I saw that Bob Camp had a much better Dr Stupid cel for sale, but I passed on it because I didn't have the money at the time, and I've been kicking myself about it ever since. But now I'm happy that I now have a Stimpy to go with the Ren.

I have weird hobbies, but if you're still reading this after however long I've been doing this, you should know that about me by now.

Follow Me on Twitter!

(NEW) Follow Me on Instagram!
"Like" Beaming For Bunnies on Facebook!
"Like" my Simpsons Quote of The Day Facebook Page!

Birthday gift!

My birthday came and went. Nothing too eventful, really. You might turn 32 once, but it's pretty unremarkable when you think about it.

But I did buy a gift for myself, and I think it's pretty neat.

Behold! It's an animation cel, but not from anything mainstream or well-known. Quite the opposite, really.

This is a cel from "Izzy's Quest for Olympic Gold," a TV special starring Izzy the Whatisit, the infamous mascot of the 1996 summer Olympics.

I've talked about Izzy and his mascot brethren before, about a decade ago in fact. He and his species lived in a world inside of the Olympic Torch, and the special was about Izzy needing to earn the five Olympic rings from good sportsmanship to leave his world to go to Earth to participate in the Olympics. This aired a few times during a single weekend on TNT in 1995, and then never seen again. I remember watching it during one of those airings, and I spent the next ten years more or less telling myself that I imagined it.

Like, there were no other reruns, no home video releases, not even any clips of the special are on Youtube or any of the other sketchier streaming sites where you'd find other obscure cartoons from the 90s.

What you do find, however, are clips and playthroughs of video games starring Izzy.

Izzy's Quest For The Olympic Rings was a pretty blatant Sonic ripoff released for the Genesis and SNES.

While Izzy's Adventure was an educational PC game.

Every once in a while, production art and cels from this special surface online. A few weeks back, I was browsing The Cricket Gallery's site (the official distributors for the cels, as they told me), and I came across it by chance. I don't know just how sought after cels from this is, but I knew I couldn't pass it up.

So I paid way more than I think I should have, and voila, I now have concrete evidence of this special's existence! A quick google search shows that only about four or five other cels have been spotted online (usually through ebay), so I'm quite excited to be part of this small club.

Follow Me on Twitter!

(NEW) Follow Me on Instagram!
"Like" Beaming For Bunnies on Facebook!
"Like" my Simpsons Quote of The Day Facebook Page!

Eleven!

Can you believe it, folks? This humble little blog turned 11 years old this week!

So...11 isn't really THAT important of a milestone. It certainly isn't TEN, anyway. But hell, I never expected to keep this up for eleven years! Especially since blogs as a whole are pretty much a dying medium these days anyway. All my good stuff has been posted on Twitter or Instagram for however long I've been on THOSE platforms.

I just want to say thank you for everyone who's been reading this tiny corner of the internet that I feel doesn't really add anything new anymore. This is still my own personal piece of the pie, and I'm glad that there's someone out there interested in what I have to say.

Until the next time I think of something to post here, enjoy these pictures of the major Elevens of pop culture:

Eleven from Stranger Things.

and of course the Eleventh Doctor of Doctor Who. Matt Smith was the first Doctor I watched, so that makes him MY doctor.

I got to meet him at NYCC a few years back, and he's totally awesome in person, exactly how I expected him to be. Just wanted to put that out there.

Follow Me on Twitter!
(NEW) Follow Me on Instagram!
"Like" Beaming For Bunnies on Facebook!
"Like" my Simpsons Quote of The Day Facebook Page!

National Gorilla Suit Day!

Yes, you heard it right! It’s January 31st, so that means that today is one of the greatest days of all:

NATIONAL GORILLA SUIT DAY!

What's National Gorilla Suit Day, you ask?

The holiday was created by Don Martin in 1963 as a story in his book "Don Martin Bounces Back."

This particular book was gifted to me by my friend Ryan for Christmas. He's a great guy, and since he's a fellow lover of the day, he knew this book would be right up my alley.

In this story, Fester Bestertester keeps complaining that National Gorilla Suit Day is nothing more than a conspiracy created by the owners of gorilla suit companies to make everyone buy more gorilla suits.

And gorillas keep showing up at Fester's door in their suits and proceed to beat the everloving crap out of him.

And since there's one panel per page, this gag goes on for 56 pages.

You'd think this would get too repetitive and dull, but it doesn't! Don Martin got a lot of mileage out of this one gag. Fester complains, someone enters the room, they zip down and reveal that they're a gorilla, they beat Fester up, they leave. Repeat. And it doesn't stop. Sometimes the gorilla is in a balloon. Sometimes the gorilla is a lawyer. Sometimes the gorilla IS ANOTHER GORILLA. The man was a master of timing and weird sound effects, and this is one of my favorite works of his. There's a few other stories in this book, but they're not as long or as funny, but I definitely recommend it.

Why is it on January 31st? That was thanks to Mark Evanier, who just decided that it should be celebrated on this day because the date itself is never specified in the story. That's one of his banners up at the top, there.

And according to this 1979 calendar, National Gorilla Suit Day fell on March 5th.

I wish I could go into more detail about all this, but there's not much info on Mark's site about it, because he deleted almost every reference to it in 2007 at the request of Don's widow since she was promoting a new Don Martin collection that had the story in it. Which is really weird in itself, when you think about it, it's always been one of the weirdest enforcements of copyright I've ever seen. His estate owns the rights to all of his non-MAD works and sure, it's understandable. But Mark's been in the business for years and was really close to the MAD magazine staff, and his blog essentially gave it free promotion.

Regardless, folks like Ryan and I keep the spirit alive and celebrate anyway, legal reasons be damned. Again, this could all be another conspiracy by the Gorilla Suit companies to make the public believe that there aren't any gorilla suits anywhere to buy.

I'll just leave you with my favorite gorilla suits of pop culture:

Oot Greet, everyone! See you all next month!

Follow Me on Twitter!
(NEW) Follow Me on Instagram!
"Like" Beaming For Bunnies on Facebook!
"Like" my Simpsons Quote of The Day Facebook Page!